BA and Unite talks deadlocked as Gordon Brown turns on the heat

PM urges quick resolution as Unite says strike necessary but 12 days 'probably over the top'

BA cabin crew on their way to work at Heathrow. The high court is to rule today on the validity of Unite’s strike ballot, which the airline says breaches trade union legislation. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

A 12-day Christmas strike by British Airways cabin crew was still on tonight as talks between airline executives and trade union leaders adjourned amid efforts to find common ground.

It is understood that face-to-face discussions between BA's chief executive, Willie Walsh, and the joint general secretaries of Unite, Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson, would resume tomorrow.

Meanwhile, BA's attempt to secure an injunction against the strikes at the high court will continue tomorrow as time runs out to prevent a mass walkout by cabin crew from next Tuesday until 2 January.

Fares with other carriers over Christmas and new year continued to rise as BA passengers scrambled to put their contingency plans in place, with nearly 1 million people facing disruption if the walkouts go ahead.

A union source said the Unite leaders entered talks with Walsh today determined to secure a deal. "Unite wants a solution and wants the talks to make that happen," the source said.

Woodley and Simpson are willing to halt the strikes if BA suspends changes in staff rotas and pays cabin crew about £400,000 a week in extra allowances while formal negotiations get under way.

BA appeared to quash that compromise tonight as it reiterated that reductions in crew numbers, imposed last month, could not be rolled back. "Tony Woodley knows that we cannot reverse the changes to onboard crew numbers," said the airline.

Internal union politics have also emerged as a complicating factor in the search for a compromise. It is understood that Unite's leadership considered delaying the announcement of strike dates on Monday after BA threatened legal action over the ballot, but pushed ahead amid pressure from Bassa, the branch of Unite that represents 12,700 BA cabin crew.

Mindful of the depth of feeling among Bassa members, Woodley and Simpson are believed to have told its representatives on Tuesday that they would not back down.

Simpson saidtoday that a 12-day strike was "probably over the top" but that it was what was needed to bring sense to the situation. He said the union's negotiating team had decided a 12-day strike was the "appropriate reaction" but added that the length of the industrial action was unusual.

"It was the decision of the negotiating team in BA. That's their judgment of what's needed to bring sense to this. It's probably over the top," he said on GMTV.

Nonetheless the wobble over strike dates has reignited concern among some cabin crew that Unite would seek a hasty deal amid mounting political pressure to call off industrial action.

BA said passengers face at least another day of uncertainty as the airline puts off publishing contingency plans pending the outcome of an injunction hearing tomorrow. "Clearly this is going to frustrate our customers more because we hoped to give them some clarity," the airline said. "We will make an announcement about what the schedule will look like as soon as possible."

The high court is expected to rule tomorrow afternoon whether Unite can proceed with a strike that could cost the airline heavily. BA has lodged an appeal, claiming "serious and substantial" irregularities in the ballot under the 1992 Trade Union Act.

Bruce Carr QC, representing the airline at a packed hearing, accused the union of deliberately "depriving literally millions of people of a happy Christmas".

He added: "The apparent recognition of the deliberate timing is highlighted by the fact that Unite needed to make it [the strike] 12 days of Christmas, not 10 or 14 … it knew the number has a resonance for the many passengers who are deprived of flying with BA."

The appeal centres around the fact – which BA and Unite accept – that about 900 cabin crew were balloted despite taking voluntary redundancy before the strike was due to take place.

Unite, which will make its full submission tomorrow morning, argues the ballot would still have resulted in a vote in favour of industrial action even if those members leaving the airline had not been balloted. Of the 13,000 cabin crew balloted, 9,514 voted in favour of industrial action. The union says it tried to find out which members had been granted voluntary redundancy before issuing ballot papers last month, but BA was unhelpful. Carr said one union official advised members that as long as they were employees at the time of the ballot – even if they had left by the time of any industrial action –they were still eligible to vote.

John Hendy QC, representing Unite, said: "We did our level best to discover who these members were who were to be made redundant. In the absence of discovering them BA [was] completely unhelpful and unco-operative and in that regard we had no option but to include them in the [ballot] notices."

BA did not comment on when the estimated 900 crew members who have been granted voluntary redundancy in the last month were given notice.

The dispute entered the political arena today as Gordon Brown warned there would be huge disruption to the public and damage to the company if the strike went ahead. Within hours of the prime minister urging talks, BA and Unite confirmed they would open discussions. Brown said he had discussed the situation with the transport secretary, Lord Adonis.

"We will do everything we can to bring the sides together; we will do everything we can to make sure that these disputes are resolved," the prime minister said in a television interview. "Equally, at the same time, the trade unions and the management have a responsibility to look outwards, and not just look inwards, and I think they have got to remember that they are serving the public."

A source close to the BA and Unite discussions indicated that political pressure was being brought to bear: "All channels of communication are being used."

BA's director of human resources, Tony McCarthy, met the general secretary of the TUC, Brendan Barber, today in an apparent attempt to involve the wider trade union movement in finding a solution.